Crowdsourced Funding for Adoption or Fertility Treatment: Good Idea or Not?

Couples are starting to turn to crowdsourcing websites to raise money for their infertility treatments or adoption costs. Good or bad idea?

Recently, I came across a news article about a new and growing trend: Couples turning to crowdfunding, often using websites like GoFundMe, in order to pay for their infertility treatments or adoption efforts. For a time there was even a website called "Krowd Kids" set up specifically to help hopeful couples organize such campaigns (as of October 2018, however, the site no longer seems to exist or has changed name).

While the individuals using such websites seem to think it's a perfectly fine idea, and a great way for people around the world to "spread the love" and help others, I personally find the whole thing kind of icky and downright weird. Let me explain further below.

I know more than most of the general public probably does about just how expensive alternative family building methods like adoption or medical fertility treatment can be. I spent considerable time looking into the options when debating how to deal with my own fertility struggles.. A single round of IVF treatment can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, often not covered by health insurance.

And there's also no guaranty of success and often very low odds of it. There are couples who will try IVF and other methods again and again and again, sending themselves into bankruptcy instead of accepting that treatment just isn't working for them (we're talking spending upwards on $100,000 on failed efforts).

I'm not interested in funding a couple that is quite honestly being delusional or throwing all their money away chasing a dream—and who now wants to throw my money away as well. I also have some ethical issues with fertility treatments in general and how they are marketed to infertile individuals when odds of success are often quite low. It's why I have not chosen to go down this path myself, and why many others have chosen the same.

Medical treatments for infertility have made great progress in recent years, but they are still not for every couple or individual struggling with fertility problems.

I have more sympathy for those trying to raise funds for private adoption, especially as state/government adoption can be a slow and difficult process with no guarantees, either.

But overseas/private adoption has its ethical issues as well. Before I'd send money to a couple so they can adopt, I'd want to know about the adoption agency they are using, and try to have some assurance that said agency isn't involved in child trafficking operations or other unethical activities (this is a big problem in some countries, see: "International Adoption's Trafficking Problem", from the Harvard Political Review.)

Also, I just have to question: if a couple can't afford to build their family in the first place, how are they going to pay for that child once they have it?

Will they turn to crowd-funding again in order to pay for that child's school supplies and sports uniforms?

For that child's medical costs beyond what insurance will cover?

What about that child's college tuition?

We, as a society, are already helping to pay others raise their children through the taxes we pay that go toward education, medical care and support toward families in financial need. I don't feel like I should be encouraged or asked to pay more privately for a couple that can't pay for their child before they even have one!

But that's just me and maybe I'm more cynical and practical-minded than the kinds of people who think there's nothing wrong with this, or actively think it's a good idea. What about you?

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